Today was one of those days where you wake up in the morning and you’re like, “oh boy I’m not ready for today”. When I woke up today I was not planning on getting angry and crying in a closet (essentially the small room with two computers is supposedly an office at work)….and I did not plan on the tide being out when I walked my dog or making huevos rancheros or having a large bill to pay or a relative sending me money, but it all happened.

It’s funny how the shitty parts of the day tend to fade away by 7pm….a little mind trick to get you to go back to work the next day and not hold up in your house reading books and painting.

I’ve been reading a book called Unstuck (as I have mentioned before) and it discusses daimons and how they turned into demons. Here is an excerpt that will better explain things,

In ancient Greece it was understood that the daimon was a guide who was both eternal and internal. Plato, in The Republic, called the daimon “a divinity” who served each soul; the “guardian” of the soul’s life and the “fulfiller” of the choices that soul made when it came into the world. The daimon was also the guiding principle of each individual’s life, the source to which you referred in times of trouble and confusion.

Down the road the word daimon was misspelled as demon and the original definition lost to a newer, evil definition. The author argues that modern psychiatry has tried to suppress our demons (depression, anxiety, etc.) with medication but we are missing out on an enlightening experience by dampening our demons. Our demons are there to teach us something, to continue to remind us that something within us is not right and there needs to be a change.

My demon or daimon today was my anger.

My supervisor has tasked me with several different word document projects that were flyers, calendars, etc. and I had completed them just to have her change the graphics a bit here and there or tweak something. That was last week and I accepted the fact that she’s a perfectionist with control issues and moved on. Today, I caught my co-worker re-cutting little fliers I made because they were slightly imperfect and according to the co-worker “a little lopsided”. This drove me to the end of my rope and I sulked off to the “closet” very angry.

Why was I so damn angry and why did I want to ball my eyes out and beat people to a pulp. After texting my significant other I figured out why.

There have been people throughout my life who, although they love me very much, deny that they had ever made me feel like I had to be perfect but something must have happened because I very much have an issue with people who have to have things “just right”. I am an artist at heart, an introvert, and a person who can handle if things are “just right”.

Every time I failed those people at being perfect…not doing a good enough job on something, half-assing things, being a slob, not sucking it up, not doing things the way they saw fit, it filled be with anger and the thought, “it’s not good enough, you’re not good enough”. And today those damn papers not being cut straight enough opened up that old wound and made me furious.

My daimon reminded me that I still have some emotional work to do surrounding that whole “not good enough” bit and that I need to do some things I don’t want to do. Like, tell my parents I’m taking a huge pay cut and no health insurance so I can run a dog-sitters business for three months (which is going to be a fight). But god, god, god, I am sick and tired of working for people and places that are shitty and this dog sitting business may sound ridiculous to some people but it’s a step I feel good about taking and I’ve taken it. I mean have you met dogs they are ten million times better than people.

So, I’m still angry but at least I know why now and I know I can try to do something about it.